The Manawatu Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 1877.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 54, 25 April 1877, Page 2

The Manawatu Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 1877.

It is to be regretted that our inter urban jealousies should have culminated m a threatened dismemberment of the Mauawatu County. The reasons given by the Council for their refusal to accede to Mr Halcombe's proposal to give the Manchester riding a second member may be excellent, but more excellent than them all there remains this plain matter of fact reason why the Council should not have refused : the granting of the request would have injured no one, and it would have deprived the Manchester riding of its only valid ground of complaint. One good reason for granting what is right,'is worth, a score of good moti.ves for not granting it. The Council Bad the opportunity of being —

not generous, but inst. at no cost to themselves ; and they lost the opportunity because, forsooth, what is now just may m after time be no longer just. This reasoning finds no apology m the approved, practices of daily life. We do not deprive a man of his present due on the probability of his hereafter forfeiting it. We grant the peculiar circumstances under which the Council refused, but these do not m the least alter the principle involved. In a question of present right or wrong, and requiring present attention, it is not the Council's province to anticipate legislation. They have for their guidance the Counties Act as it is, not as it is to be. The Council then are chargeable with an error of judgment, and they experienced some of its unpleasant consequences at their last sitting. Yet the error is neither very grave nor very censurable. Not very grave because it might have been easily remedied ; moreover, the principle rather than the fact was wrong, for had the Council granted a second member to the Manchester riding, that member could not have been elected for months tp come. Not very censurable because great allowance should be made for mistakes whenever the machinery and machine workers are new to each other. The Act itself reveals the opening page of a chapter of errors, and these extend, and will continue to extend, on into the working of the Act. Such are the necessary concomitants of a mode of government, which, if not new absolutely, is new to the place and the people. But as we gain experience our progress will be less blemished by mistakes. We cannot test the sailing powers of a ship until she reaches the breezy open sea : she cannot sail fairly while drifting among the rocks and shallows. Andthelatterour local government is doing — drifting among the shallows of inexperience. Some slight groundings must therefore be looked for, and taken into account m estimating our position and prospects. No one save the mei'est visionary can expect that m the infant days of County Government everything will fall exactly into its. place, and every community receive its full mede of justice. This is a perfection scarcely realised under well developed systems of government. Mr Halcombe, we take it, is a gentleman of experience — not m county government — but m men and things. To such a one we look for that liberality and forbearance that should grace the abilities of public men, and which present circumstances especially call for. Least of all do we expect him to fly off at a tangent at the very first hitch. The wise surgeon always adopts the mildest measures adequate to produce the result required. When admissible he employs the philosophic treatment of expectancy. " Only m extreme cases does he excise. Mr Halcombe has reversed the order. In a very trifling case he would resort to the grave expedient of amputation. We do not suppose that he or any one else deems this necessary to secure the rights of the Manchester Eiding. Had he taken half the trouble to procure a second member for that riding which he has taken to procure separation his efforts would have been completely successful. If instead of petitioning the Government for their independence the Manchester people had petitioned the County Council for increased representation their prayer would, without doubt, have been granted, but we do not predicate as much for their present aspiration. Indeed the matter of separation has been so invested with the aspect of a sine qua non, and has been entered upon with such strange and needless alacrity as to invite the very natural conclusion that the negativing of Mr Haleombe's motion had very little to do with it, except by way of furnishing a desired pretext. If this be so, we must seek' the motive m the notion that Manchester and Kiwitea will be benefited by separation from the rest of the County. This notion is suspiciously like a falacy. Whatever may be the immediate effects of this separation, we have little doubt, that m the long-run, the interests of these two ridings will be better promoted by being part of a lar^e County than by being the whole of a small one. Were the present boundaries to remain intact the inter urban jealousies that now exist would be probably m a short time extinguished m a sense of common interest. Each- riding would have its rights, and the whole would be governed economically and constitute an influential corporation. Destroy this unity, and there will be a lamentable waste of revenue, prestige, and power. The jealousies that have existed will be perpetuated. Interests that may now go hand m hand will become artificially diverse and opposite. These disadvantages, perhaps not appreciable m this, our

infancy will become only too patent and real m maturer years. Despite the pleasant prospectus set forth the other day at the Feilding public meeting, we cannot help thinking that there is more of the shadow than the substance m what the Manchester people are grasping at % The privilege of separate Government m this ease is not after all so much a privilege as a tax. It is pleasant to be m a house entirely ones own, but surely it is safer to inhabit a house of which one is only part owner, if the latter is more securely built. We are well aware that these remarks will not content either party m the Council, nor are we very solicitous that they should. While we give both separatist and nonseparatist credit for honesty of intention we cannot absolutely approve of the course either party has taken, and whatever motives of local interest the fanciful or prejudiced mind may be pleased to impute to us, we are conscious of being guided only by our views of the fitness of things, and are quite content to appear to the ordinary thinker>as exponents of the collective interests of the community.